My Lords, I rise to speak to all the amendments in this group, and in doing so declare my interest as chair of the National Society. Turning first to Amendments 26, 27, 28 and 29, I am extremely grateful to the Minister, again, for her continued work with us on these important issues. It is no comment on the noble Baroness, Lady Penn, but the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, and the team have been particularly helpful, and it has been a fruitful ongoing conversation. The partnership between the Church of England and the Department for Education is greatly valued and a significant strength in the sector of education. This is seen in the way we work at national, regional and local level and through the outworking, for example, of the 2016 memorandum of understanding between the Department for Education and the National Society—I should add that our friends and colleagues in the Roman Catholic Church express the same thanks—which is an important recognition of the need for continued partnership in order for us to serve 1 million children through Church of England schools.
Some concerns have been raised about the protections and guarantees given to academies with a religious character, and the Church welcomes the clarity and assurance the Government have given about the scope of regulations in this regard. It moves us from a contractual to a statutory footing better to safeguard the distinctive Christian character and ethos of our family of Church schools. Such regulations will need to secure the religious character of our schools through, for example, good models of governance, and we look forward to working with the department as those regulations are produced. The Government’s commitment to ensure the transfer of provisions for RE and collective worship currently set out in maintained legislation to the academy sector are to be commended, so I welcome this amendment, which helps to clarify the purposes for which the regulations are made and secures a duty to make those regulations. In Committee, the Minister responded to my amendment by giving assurances that regulations would be made under Clause 20, and we are grateful to her for acting in this way.
Turning to Amendment 30, it was good to be able to talk to the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, but I know that I have disappointed her in not feeling able at this stage to support it in its current form. This amendment relates to religious education in academies without a religious character—I fully accept that it has no impact at all on Church or other faith schools—which I am sure we are all agreed is an important topic if we are to enable our young people to play an active role in a world where faith and world views are so important. RE must be safeguarded in all our schools. However, as the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, pointed out, the Commission on Religious Education’s report pushed
in this direction. Progress has been made since then within the RE community through the work of the Religious Education Council, which has not yet concluded. We are confident that we are moving towards a consensus about the future of the RE curriculum in all schools, and I fear that if we do not wait for that consensus, the danger is that we will pursue an amendment that fixes something unhelpful. It is purely a matter of timing that we disagree on, rather than the direction, I think. It is very important that the content of the RE curriculum in schools with a non-religious character be given attention, but I think it is better to wait for consensus about that content to be reached before mandating it in this way.
6.15 pm
Turning next to Amendments 35 and 36, I welcome Amendment 35 and its consequential amendment which would require a local authority to gain the consent of the appropriate religious body before applying for an academy order for a maintained school in its area with a religious character. The clause this amendment relates to required consent from the governor-appointing body and from trustees, but this inadvertently excluded many C of E diocesan boards of education from the requirement to give consent to the academy order of a school for which it is the religious authority. This was an unfortunate omission of a principle that Parliament has demonstrated its acceptance of in passing the Diocesan Boards of Education Measure 2021, which explicitly requires the consent of a DBE before a governing body can seek an academy order. We therefore thank the Government for bringing forward these amendments, which address this detail, make sure that the two laws agree and ensure that DBEs are functioning effectively within the academising system.
Finally, we welcome Amendment 39 and its consequential amendment. The creation of strong diocesan MATs that are sustainable is key in moving towards a fully trust-led system. Because Church of England schools are largely small and rural, the size of trusts may need flexibility, and they may need to be larger to be viable. Because they are a confined geographical area, dioceses are best placed to understand in each local context how to measure flourishing across pupils, staff and the whole trust community. This clause enables them, with the regional directors for the DfE, to utilise their understanding of the distinct communities they serve proactively to shape the future school system in each locality. This is especially important properly to account for the variability of C of E schools and ensure that they can move en masse to a fully trust-led system. In light of our previous debate on local issues, I reflect to the Minister that it might be worth exploring what happens within the Church school sector in order to explore the local accountability issues that were raised earlier. We also thank the Minister for introducing Amendment 61, another necessary consequential amendment to define the “appropriate religious authority”.
I end simply by reiterating our deep thanks to the department’s staff and the Minister for the careful and warm collaboration we have had on these amendments.